


There'll Be Peace When You Are Done

by fallintosanity (yopumpkinhead)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:56:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8146610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/fallintosanity
Summary: After kicking Gadreel out of his body, Sam can't stand to look his brother in the eyes anymore, but he can't stand the touch of angel Grace, either. Running from his problems has never worked before, but this time it ends with him crashed in a ditch - until Sam finds a family who needs his help as much as he needs theirs. But without Gadreel to heal him or Castiel to draw out the holy energy still trapped in his body, and with Abaddon and her demons still hungry for Winchester blood, Sam may not live long enough to help anyone...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to my amazing beta, [a_diamond](http://archiveofourown.org/users/a_diamond)!
> 
> For [findingherown](http://findingherown.livejournal.com/) for [SPN Summergen](http://spn-summergen.livejournal.com/). In their prompt, they noted that what Dean did regarding Gadreel was "very bad [and] wrong". This fic attempts to explore that, and what it means to Sam and to his and Dean's relationship. Thank you for the wonderful prompt!

Sam didn’t watch Dean drive away in the Impala. Not because he didn’t want to - he couldn’t make himself care, right then - but because Castiel had come close again, his Grace sparking and hissing against Sam’s skin, against his soul. It was taking all Sam’s concentration not to bolt, not to run as far from Castiel and his angel Grace as his feet could carry him. Without Gadreel in his brain to wipe the memories ( _and how many times had that happened, how many memories had Sam lost?_ ), Sam could remember the hum of Grace under his own skin, in his hand as it reached toward Kevin—

He twisted around, leaning over the railing of the dock, stomach heaving. _No!_

“Sam?” Castiel asked, worried, and he put a hand on Sam’s back between his shoulder blades and all Sam could see was blackened eye sockets, all he could feel was the thrumming virulent power of Grace, and before he even realized it he was off the dock and halfway across the parking lot, away from Cas, his hands held up defensively in front of him even though he knew it wouldn’t do any good against an angel.

“Sam!” Castiel repeated, and took a couple of steps toward him before stopping again when Sam flinched back. “Sam, please, what’s wrong? I can help you—”

“No,” Sam whispered, and shook his head. “No.” Because you said _no_ to angels, it was the only thing you could do, the only thing Sam could keep for himself, _no no no no no_ , and he backed away across the lot until his thighs hit the bumper of a truck parked on the other side. Castiel still stood in the middle of the dock, looking lost, looking hurt, and Sam wished he could find words to explain. But words couldn’t encompass the burning sandpaper grate of Grace against his senses, couldn’t describe how the thought of being near an angel again - any angel, even Cas - was enough to bring Sam to his knees.

So he kept backing away, until his fingers found the handle of the truck’s door and caught there. He didn’t remember pulling his door shim from his pocket, didn’t remember climbing inside or hotwiring the engine, but then there was glass and metal and yards of asphalt between him and the screeching spitting whine of angel Grace. He still didn’t relax until the yards became miles and the rain began to come down in earnest, so that the only thought in his head was keeping the truck on the road.

*             *             *

Sam came back to consciousness slowly. His head and neck hurt, and it took him several long seconds to realize it was because he was hanging forward against his seat belt, a deflated air bag a few inches below his nose. The stolen truck had come to a halt pointed down a steep slope; Sam had no idea what had stopped it. He couldn’t see anything in the predawn dimness beyond the spiderwebbed windshield. He didn’t remember driving off the road, but then, he didn’t remember much of anything since leaving Cas on the dock back in Pennsylvania.

He was freezing cold, his breath pluming out in front of his face, and it was tempting to just hang there until the cold let him drift off, until he faded into frozen nothing. It would be a peaceful end, as they went - much more than he’d ever expected for himself. _It ends bloody or sad,_ Dean had said, all those years ago, and maybe this was a little sad - or maybe not, Dean had fucked him over and kicked him to the curb and there was no one left to mourn - but at least it wasn’t bloody.

For a while Sam just hung there, body aching where the seatbelt dug into his chest, his neck sore from whiplash and the weight of his head hanging limp. He could feel the cold taking him, knew he wouldn’t have to wait too long—

Lights flashed somewhere nearby, an engine rumbling, and Sam jolted back to awareness again. Lights meant people, meant questions, meant paramedics and police. They’d realize the truck was stolen, realize he wasn’t who his ID said he was - not that he could remember what ID he had on him right now, or even if he had any. He doubted Gadreel had cared. But it meant he couldn’t afford to stay here, not if he wasn’t dead yet.

Moving hurt, his half-frozen limbs stiff, knuckles popping as he unbuckled the seat belt. He couldn’t quite get his legs working in time, and landed with a pained huff on top of the steering wheel. The horn blared, loud and painful, sending a jolt of adrenaline through him that gave him the strength to fumble the door open and claw his way out. He landed in snow, deep and wet and heavy, and struggled to his feet with a hand on the side of the truck for balance. More lights flashed past overhead, along the road; it was only a matter of time before someone noticed the broken guardrail and stopped to investigate. Sam pushed away from the truck and staggered downhill.

There were trees down here, too sparse to be a forest, and Sam trudged through them. His shoes weren’t made for snow and it wasn’t long before his feet and ankles were soaked with meltwater. He couldn’t feel his toes. Or his fingers, even though he’d stuck his hands in his armpits for warmth. He considered lying down out here, alone in the trees, and giving the cold another shot. But now that he was up and walking, there was a tiny part of his brain - the stubborn part, the part Dean and Dad had always hated, that Sam sometimes wished he could carve out of his skull - that said _keep going_.

So he kept walking, as the trees gave way to a narrow dirt road and the sky overhead lightened into morning. He passed a few broken-down structures, old farmhouses and barns, nothing worth trying to find shelter in. The sun helped against the cold, though Sam knew he needed to get someplace warm soon or else it wouldn’t matter what the stubborn part of his brain said. He followed the narrow road, minutes counting up to hours in his brain, because roads had to go _somewhere_ and maybe he’d find someplace to stop, someplace to rest—

A child’s cry cut through the mid-morning stillness.

For a second Sam thought he’d imagined it. He was still out in the middle of nowhere, nothing but trees and the occasional overgrown farm surrounding him; what would a _child_ be doing out here? But the child screamed again, and again, and kept going, the kind of full-body wail only very young children could manage. Sam followed the sound, picking up the pace a little, trying to shake warmth back into half-frozen limbs. The road rose up through a copse of trees, and Sam pushed up the hill, breath puffing out in front of him.

The old dirt road met a wider paved road at the top of the hill, and a little ways down the paved road, Sam spotted a car parked on the shoulder. Its rear tire was flat, the car’s frame slumping at an angle. A woman stood next to it, dressed all in black, holding a baby on her hip and rocking it with an air of desperation visible even from this far away.

Sam hesitated. He was still at the very edge of the trees beside the dirt road, and the woman hadn’t noticed him yet. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to. She might need help, but he had an idea of what he looked like: pale and shivering and sick, yes, but also close to six and a half feet tall, and still broad-shouldered despite the muscle weight he’d lost during the Trials. Not the kind of person a smallish woman with a baby would want to see staggering out of the woods toward her.

But then the baby screamed again and the woman winced, slumping against the hood of the car, and Sam had taken a few steps toward her before he realized what he was doing. The movement must have caught her eye, because she looked up, freezing in place when she saw him, her arms tightening around the baby.

Sam spread his hands out to the sides, trying to look harmless. “Are you okay?” he asked. Or tried to; his voice came out in a hoarse rasp and he cleared his throat and said it again.

“We’re fine,” the woman said, her voice sharp. “We’re just—”

The baby wailed again, drowning out whatever she’d been about to say, and she cringed away from the volume. This close, Sam could see the child was a girl, probably less than a year old. She, too, wore all black. _Funeral_ , Sam thought. The woman looked older, her graying brown hair and the crow’s feet behind her glasses suggesting early fifties or so. Too old to be the mother of an infant. But she and the baby had the same warm brown eyes, the same delicate nose - a grandmother, maybe, or an older aunt. She looked exhausted, frazzled, her makeup smudged from what Sam guessed had been tears, her hair mussed where the baby had been grabbing at it.

“Sorry,” Sam said. He hesitated, not sure if he should offer to help in some way, not sure if there was anything he could do even if she was willing to accept it.

The baby was still crying, struggling against the woman’s grip, and now she reached up to shove and hit at the woman’s face. The woman managed to grab one of her hands, saying sharply, “Kaylyn, no, don’t hit Grandma.” But the baby’s other hand, still flailing, caught the woman’s glasses and knocked them to the ground.

Sam saw the woman begin to crack. Her head fell back and she closed her eyes, grief and exhaustion and frustration written across every line of her face as she sank further against the car. Sam crossed the pavement to her and bent to pick up the glasses. They hadn’t broken, thankfully, and he offered them to the woman.

But the baby was still screaming and flailing, inconsolable, and the woman just stood hunched against the onslaught, clearly beyond the point where she could cope. So Sam set the glasses on the hood of the car beside her, then, as gently as he could, lifted the baby out of her arms.

The little girl immediately redoubled her screams and flailing, but Sam held her cradled against his chest where she couldn’t reach his face. He had no idea what to do with a baby - the only other time he’d been near one in his life had been when he was soulless, and he barely remembered it - but he had the vague idea that you were supposed to rock and sing to them to calm them down. It took him a minute to find a rhythm, humming Metallica’s “Mama Said” and then “The Unforgiven”. He was halfway through “Fade to Black” before the baby girl finally calmed, settling against his chest and making little sniffly unhappy sounds until she fell into an exhausted sleep.

Sam looked up from the baby to find that the grandmother had composed herself, glasses settled back on her nose, hair straightened, a kleenex in hand to wipe away the smudged makeup. She met his eyes tiredly. “Thank you,” she said, her voice rough. “It’s… been a hard few days.”

“I, uh. I’m sorry for your loss,” Sam ventured.

The woman blinked, then looked down at her somber black clothes. She took a deep breath and shuddered. “My daughter Ashley,” she said softly. “Kaylyn’s mother.”

Sam nodded. The woman looked up again, her eyes passing over Sam from head to toe, seeming to really see him - his bedraggled clothes, damp shoes, too-pale skin with the veins standing out in stark contrast - for the first time. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You must be freezing.”

He shrugged, mindful of the baby in his arms. “I’m fine,” he said ( _if he said it enough then maybe he’d start to believe it_ ). “Um, your car, do you have a tow truck coming?”

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself. “My husband went to find a building with a landline. Our phones don’t have signal out here.”

That would probably be a long and unpleasant walk in the freezing cold, if Sam’s experience was any guide. “Do you have a spare tire?” he asked. “I could get it changed, if you want.”

She stared at him for a second, relief and hope and maybe a little, not unreasonable, fear in her eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean—”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Maybe, uh, you could give me a ride into town?”

“We can certainly do that,” she said. She smoothed her skirt, then offered her hand. “Helen Bennet. You’re holding my granddaughter Kaylyn Bennet.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sam said. He managed to extract a hand from the baby to shake Helen’s. “Sam Winchester.”

She gave him a somewhat wobbly smile, then turned away rather abruptly and reached for the car door. “I’ll pop the trunk for you.”

Sam waited while Helen got the trunk and the spare wheel compartment open, then carefully handed the baby back to her and got to work. Holding the baby had at least warmed up his fingers to the point where he could feel them again, and the Bennets’ car had a neatly-packed off-the-shelf tire-changing kit, so it wasn’t particularly difficult.

Helen watched him in silence for a few minutes, rocking the baby absently, her expression growing sad. Finally, in the tone of someone trying to distract herself, she said, “So… how’d you end up walking back-country roads? Did your car break down, too?”

“No,” Sam said, then hesitated, not sure what to say, how much to tell her. “Um. I’m not—I don’t—” He shook his head, keeping his gaze on the flat tire as he worked it off the axle. “I just… needed to be somewhere else, for a while.”

“I see,” Helen said, and he had the sudden uneasy impression that she’d read more from his words than he’d meant her to. Thankfully, she didn’t push the matter, and just said, “Well, I’m glad you came along when you did. You’re an angel.”

The word _angel_ hit Sam like a truck, like a gut punch, and for a second all he could feel was Grace burning through his body, out through his palm, Kevin’s startled face under his hand—

“Sam?” Helen’s voice, worried, and he clung to it, fingers gripping the wheel well hard enough to hurt. “Sam, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “Just pinched my finger. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” She hovered at his shoulder, the hand not holding the baby reaching out like she wanted to grip his shoulder but wasn’t sure she should.

“Yeah.” He managed an expression he hoped was a smile; it was apparently close enough that she stepped back and resettled the baby. “Almost done.”

They didn’t speak again until after Sam had wrestled the flat tire into the trunk, Helen had buckled the baby into her car seat, and they were pulling out onto the road. The spare tire wobbled a little but held, and Helen kept the car carefully between the painted road lines. “We should find my husband somewhere along the road,” she said over her shoulder to Sam where he sat in the back seat, next to the baby. “He’ll be glad he won’t need to walk all that way.”

“You live around here?” Sam asked.

Helen shook her head. “Wareham. But my family owns land out here. Farm’s been in the family since my great-grandfather. I wanted my daughter—” Her voice hitched and she swallowed, then continued, “Wanted her to be buried with family.”

Sam was spared having to answer by Helen spotting her husband further up the road, trudging tiredly along the shoulder. He was a stocky man not much taller than his wife, with leathery skin and wispy pale hair, and he wore a dark suit soaked to the knees with snow melt. She passed him and pulled over; he hurried up to the passenger window. “Helen?” he asked, surprised, then spotted Sam. His eyes widened and then narrowed again; Sam tried to look harmless.

“Tom, this is Sam Winchester,” Helen said firmly. “Sam, my husband Tom. Sam got the tire changed and I offered him a ride to the city.”

“Hitchhiking?” Tom asked gruffly. Sam nodded, and Tom continued, “All right. Just…” He hesitated, jaw clenching, then shook his head and climbed into the front seat without continuing. Sam was pretty sure he’d wanted to say _Just don’t be trouble._

*             *             *

Sam hadn’t meant to sleep - he had too many things to have nightmares about - but the gentle rocking and whisper of tires over pavement had always made him sleepy. And the car had a working heater, its warmth tingling through the frozen skin of his fingers and toes, pushing back against the cold that had sunk deep into his bones. He fell into an uneasy doze, head resting against the window, jolting back to awareness every time he edged close enough to real sleep to feel the memory of Gadreel’s Grace pulsing beneath his skin. Helen and Tom didn’t seem to notice, at least, silent and mourning in the front of the car.

Maybe an hour or so later, the car came to a stop in the driveway of a big colonial house, white with neat dark blue trim under the snow. Trees surrounded the house and its lawn, their branches bare and stark. Other houses lined the street to either side, far enough apart that each had a comfortably large lawn, close enough to still feel neighborly. It took Sam a few seconds to remember why he was there, what he was doing. He wasn’t sure if he could muster the strength to walk.

Then Helen and Tom opened their doors and climbed out, and the slap of cold wind that blasted through the car bit into Sam like a knife ( _like angels’ claws, Lucifer flaying the skin from his body while frozen air sliced through his bones_ ). He was out of the car and halfway down the driveway before he got hold of himself again, made himself stop, hold still, his thumb digging into the old scar on his palm even though it didn’t help any more.

“Sam?” Helen’s voice, behind him. “Are you…?”

“Sorry,” Sam whispered, and shivered. The cold had sunk right back into him, like it had never left, like he’d never escaped ( _Grace jolting through him_ ). “Thanks for the ride,” he added, his voice rough. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Hold on, now,” Tom said, and before Sam could react Tom had caught him by the elbow. He studied Sam’s face with knowing blue eyes, then said gently, “Come inside, let your clothes dry. I won’t be responsible for you catching frostbite.”

“I’m fine,” Sam said, but it came out with an edge of hysteria and Tom clearly didn’t believe him. He gently but firmly steered Sam up the steps and through the front door. Helen was already inside, baby Kaylyn in her arms. The baby had woken up, and squinted around over Helen’s shoulder as if deciding what to throw a tantrum about next. Helen got her settled in a little playpen on the floor in the middle of a comfortably old-fashioned living room, while Tom directed Sam to the big couch. Then Tom disappeared through a doorway, presumably into the kitchen judging by the sound of cupboards and dishes clanking.

Helen sat at the other end of the couch, watching Kaylyn toss little stuffed toys around the playpen, her expression sad. Sam held still, feeling awkward and out of place, like an intruder on their grief. Pictures lined the walls and the mantle of the fireplace opposite the couch: a younger Helen and Tom, with a girl who must have been their daughter Ashley. She was girl-next-door pretty, with her father’s blue eyes and her mother’s curly brown hair, and a radiant smile that reminded Sam of Jess. Looking around the room, Sam could see Ashley growing up in the pictures, from a dirt-smudged child to a shy teenager to a proud college graduate, and finally to a solemn, tired-looking woman in a hospital bed with a tiny pink bundle in her arms. She’d only been a few years younger than Sam.

“Hot chocolate?” Tom asked.

Sam jumped, startled; he felt suddenly guilty for being caught staring at the photos. Tom stood beside the couch, holding out a steaming mug, and Sam took it on reflex. Tom handed another mug to Helen, then settled into an overstuffed chair beside her with his own mug. He smiled apologetically at Sam. “Normally I’d make coffee, but… kinda feels like we could all use something a little nicer.”

Sam nodded and made himself take a careful sip. It was surprisingly good - clearly not the cheap supermarket packets, but something stronger and richer. He hadn’t had hot chocolate in years, and the warmth of it soothed the ice that still sat at the pit of his stomach, radiated out into the tips of his fingers.

“So, Sam… what’s got you hitchhiking through New England in the middle of January?” Tom asked.

“Long story,” Sam said, and looked down at the mug. “I, uh.” He hesitated, words sticking in his throat. They were civilians, with no idea what kinds of creatures were out there. If he talked about possession, about demons and angels and heavenly quests to close the gates of Hell, they’d think he was crazy. Crazier than they probably already thought he was. He shook his head. “My brother and I, we… I couldn’t stay. I’m not… I just needed to… to be somewhere else.”

He saw Helen and Tom exchange a look, and winced internally. That answer hadn’t made him sound any less crazy than talking about angels would have.

“You got a place to—” Tom began, but a diesel engine rumbled outside and he froze. Helen bowed her head and hunched her shoulders as if in anticipation of pain. Tom turned in his chair to scowl at the window beside the fireplace, which looked out over the driveway. Sam followed his gaze and saw a big blue pickup truck jerk to a halt beside the Bennets’ car, nearly sideswiping it. The truck’s door popped open and then slammed closed again, though the angle of the truck and the window prevented Sam from seeing who’d gotten out. Tom’s jaw had clenched, his fingers closing into a fist on the arm of the chair.

Someone pounded roughly on the front door, and a man’s voice shouted, “Open up! I know you assholes are in there!”

Tom started to stand; Helen caught his eye and shook her head frantically. “Helen—” Tom began, but the man at the door shouted again.

“You wouldn’t let me come to her funeral, at least have the decency to talk to me!” More pounding, the door shaking in its frame. Baby Kaylyn, eyes wide, began to cry. The pounding stopped for a moment, then the man growled, “That’s my baby in there. You stole her from me, you fuckers, you had no right—”

Tom stood up, ignoring Helen, and strode over to the door. He yanked it open, revealing a tall spare man in jeans and a workman’s jacket, with a face that might have been handsome if it wasn’t twisted into a furious scowl. The guy glared down at Tom, but Tom spoke first: “Get off my property, you son of a bitch. You can’t be here.”

“Fuck that,” the guy snarled. “That’s my kid, and I don’t care what a judge says, I’m gonna get her back from you morons if I have to take her myself!”

Tom stepped closer, getting in the guy’s face. “I’ll say it one more time. Get the _hell_ off my property.”

The guy snarled again - then planted both hands on Tom’s chest and shoved, hard. Tom went flying, landing with a pained grunt on the hard tile of the entry hall. Helen gasped and rose, but hesitated beside the playpen as if torn between going to her husband and protecting the crying baby. The guy took a step into the house, his head turning toward the living room and the baby.

He hadn’t noticed Sam, sitting quiet and unassuming on the couch.

Sam was on his feet, across the room, and in the guy’s face before he took a second step. The guy yelped and hopped backward, nearly falling off the top step of the little porch before catching his balance. Sam followed, staying a little too close, forcing the guy back down the steps and out onto the driveway before he recovered from the surprise. But then the guy managed to plant his feet, jutting out his chin. He was nearly as tall as Sam but a good forty or fifty pounds lighter, though Sam could see whipcord muscle under his jacket.

“Who the fuck are you?” the guy demanded.

“No one,” Sam answered, keeping his voice calm.

“Fuckin’ _liar_ ,” the man spat. “I bet you’re her new man, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? They let _you_ go to her funeral but not me—”

“I wasn’t at the funeral,” Sam interrupted. “I was stranded in the snow, they gave me a ride back, that’s all.”

“Like _hell!_ ” The guy tried to dodge around Sam toward the house, but Sam sidestepped, staying in his face, keeping him from getting any closer.

“Mike, _stop_ it, _please_ , just go—!” Helen’s voice. Sam didn’t dare take his eyes off the guy - Mike - long enough to look for her, but from the angle of her voice he thought she was standing in the house’s front door.

“You took her from me, you bitch!” Mike snarled. He tried again to step around Sam but again Sam stayed in the way. Mike’s already furious expression darkened further, and he shoved Sam, hard. “Move it, asshole!”

“They asked you to leave,” Sam answered levelly. “You should leave.”

Mike punched him across the face.

Sam had seen it coming - the guy was an amateur, his moves telegraphed like a bad TV fight - and rolled with the blow. It stung, but Sam’d had worse. Hell, Dean had hit Sam harder by accident when they were sparring. ( _Had hit him a lot harder on purpose, too, when Sam didn’t live up to what Dean wanted_.) He straightened and took a quick step to keep himself between Mike and the house.

Mike stared at him for a second, as if he’d expected the blow to put Sam down for the count and couldn’t understand why it hadn’t. Sam said again, “You should leave.”

“Not until they give me the kid,” Mike spat. “She’s _mine_. Ashley was _mine_ , too, and those fuckers took her from me, they fucking _lied_ to a judge to try to keep me away, but it’s not gonna work.” That last he snarled over Sam’s shoulder toward Helen. “Ashley was _mine_ —”

“No,” Helen shot back. “She didn’t belong to anyone, despite how hard you tried to convince her otherwise. She did the right thing, getting away from you—”

“She didn’t deserve to leave!” Mike shouted. He swung at Sam again, this time in the stomach, and Sam let him land the blow, and then a second one across the jaw. Still not especially great hits, aimed more to cause pain than to disable, and pain was nothing to Sam anymore. Not after the Trials, not after—

( _Lucifer_ )

—after Hell. Sam focused on staying in Mike’s way, keeping him from getting any closer to the house, even after Mike hit him again, and again and again. He was screaming still, about how Ashley had been _his_ and the baby was _his_ and she was a bitch for leaving, she didn’t deserve to live without him but then she’d gone and stolen his baby, and then stolen herself. “You did that to her!” Mike shouted at Helen. “You took her from me! And when I got her back, you—”

“Got her _back?!_ ” Helen repeated, incredulous rage in her voice. “You dragged her screaming into your truck and held her down while you—” She broke off, voice cracking.

“I didn’t have a choice!” Mike roared, and hit Sam again, the blow fueled by fury. “She wouldn’t listen to me! _I did what I had to do!_ ”

Sam saw white.

( _Gadreel’s memory, facing Dean in the bunker’s storeroom, Dean saying “I did what I had to do”. Another memory, Sam’s body strapped to a chair while Gadreel glares at Dean and says, “I’m doing what I have to do.” Dean, standing on the dock, letting Sam get barely twenty words in before interrupting with “I didn’t have a choice.”_ )

Trials energy surged through him with a flash of golden light, as hot and powerful as it had been that night in the church. Sam’s fist connected squarely with Mike’s jaw, the impact jarring his arm, bruising his knuckles. Mike went flying.

He landed in a heap in the snow fifteen feet away and lay there, stunned. Sam sucked in a breath, chest heaving, struggling to force down the surge of power that burned under his skin. He realized belatedly that they had an audience, people standing in the lawn next door, the driveway across the street, coats and boots thrown on haphazardly. At least one person had a cell phone out and pointed at Mike, filming the fight.

The Trials energy faded as suddenly as it had returned, taking with it the last of Sam’s strength. His legs gave out and he sat down hard in the snow-covered driveway. _That’s that, then._ The police would show up, would arrest Sam for attacking Mike, and when they realized who he was they’d lock him in solitary and throw away the key, and maybe that would be enough to keep Dean from shoving another angel into him, or doing something even worse since the golden light in Sam’s bones was proof the angel hadn’t been enough—

“Sam?”

Helen’s voice, worried. Sam struggled to get his thoughts in order.

“Sam! Are you all right?”

He tried to speak, but the words didn’t come. His hands hung loose in his lap, knuckles bloody from the single blow.

“Sam, look at me, please, Sam, come on, honey, look at me.”

He could do that, at least. He focused on Helen where she crouched in front of him, her hands cupping his face gently. Past her he could see that a couple of the neighbors had surrounded Mike, but instead of helping him up, comforting him, they were standing guard with anger on their faces while Mike cowered on the ground at their feet.

Helen tilted Sam’s head gently, examining the bruises along his jaw and around his eyes where Mike’s fists had landed. “Are you all right?” she asked again, and this time he managed to nod.

Tires crunched on snow, and a police car, lights and sirens off, rolled to a stop at the end of the driveway. A pair of uniformed cops got out; one of them went to where the neighbors stood watch over Mike, and the other came to where Sam sat limp on the ground.

“You okay, Mrs. Bennet?” the cop asked.

Helen nodded shakily. “I’m fine. But Mike threw Tom to the floor, and he was—he did _this_ to Sam—”

“Christ,” the cop muttered. He pulled the radio off his belt and called for an ambulance. Then he said to Helen, “Tell me what happened.”

Sam tuned them out, focusing on the cold of the snow as it seeped into his bones, the pain of the bruises and broken skin where Mike had hit him. Eventually an ambulance arrived and EMTs took Helen’s place. They coaxed Sam up off the ground, wrapped a blanket around him, sat him in the back of the ambulance while they cleaned blood off his face and made sure he wasn’t seriously injured. Mike was already in the ambulance, sitting sullen on the gurney with a cop standing guard at his elbow. His jaw was broken, hanging at an awkward angle. Sam couldn’t bring himself to care.

Then Helen was back, taking Sam by the arm and leading him back up into the house. She pushed a pile of cloth into his arms and steered him into a small but tidy bathroom. “Pete from next door brought over some clothes that should fit. Turn the water up as hot as you can stand,” she said gently. “You’ve spent too much time out in the cold.”

Sam stared blankly at her. “They’re not arresting me?” he asked.

“What? Of course not!” Helen answered, indignant. “You didn’t do anything wrong! You protected us, Sam, and…” She paused, a hitch in her voice. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just nodded. Helen squeezed his arm, then left him alone in the bathroom.

The hot water of the shower felt better than he was expecting despite the cuts and bruises from Mike’s fists, and Sam let himself stand under the spray until his skin was red and his fingertips were shriveled. The donated clothes from next-door-neighbor Pete turned out to be a pair of sweatpants old enough to be comfortably soft, and a dark red hoodie with “Bridgewater State University” printed across the front in black and white letters. Sam’s wrists and ankles stuck out, but the clothes were warm and covered everything important. He combed his wet hair out of his eyes with his fingers and headed back out into the living room.

Tom and Helen sat on the couch together, watching baby Kaylyn play in her little playpen. They both had fresh mugs of hot chocolate, and when Tom saw Sam, he went to the kitchen and came back with one for Sam, as well. “Made it a little stronger this time,” Tom said gruffly as he sat down beside his wife. “Figured we could use it.”

Sam tasted the hot chocolate - sure enough, it had been spiked with something alcoholic. It tasted good, though, and the warmth of the chocolate warded off the chill that was already trying to creep back into Sam’s bones. He sat in the easy chair across from the couch, sipping the chocolate and trying not to think.

“Sam,” Helen said suddenly, and he jumped. Helen didn’t seem to notice; she was facing the baby but her gaze was far, far away. “Thank you,” she said softly. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Sam shrugged, uncomfortable. “You asked him to leave,” he said.

“That man… that _monster_ ,” Tom said, answering the question Sam wasn’t asking. “It’s his fault our little girl is…”

“What happened?” Sam asked carefully.

Tom shook his head. Helen, her gaze still distant, said, “He… swept Ashley off her feet. Treated her like a princess. She loved him to pieces. We…” She shook her head. “I wish we could say we were suspicious from the start, but we weren’t. Mike was… he seemed like such a nice boy. But after they got married, he…”

“Changed,” Tom said darkly.

“He wouldn’t let her see us anymore,” Helen continued. “Or her friends. He... beat her. And he… When he got her pregnant, she knew she couldn’t bring a baby into… into _that_. She managed to escape, and turned up at our doorstep in the middle of the night, three months pregnant with bruises all over.”

“We did everything we could,” Tom said. “Got a restraining order. Made sure she never went anywhere alone. She had the baby last April. We took care of ‘em both.”

Sam looked up at the picture on the wall of Ashley in the hospital bed with the newborn Kaylyn. Helen followed his gaze and smiled sadly. “Things were… looking up. She doted on Kaylyn. Mike stayed away. We thought…” The smile faded. “We got careless. Christmas came ‘round, and then the after-Christmas sales.”

“Ashley always loved shopping after the holidays,” Tom said. “Said you couldn’t get better deals any other time.”

“She went to the mall with two of her friends,” Helen said. “They went to the bathroom, but it was crowded, there was a line—so her friends waited for her outside. But Mike somehow found her in there. He dragged her out through a service door, took her to his truck, and…” She broke off, pressing a hand to her mouth, her shoulders bowing.

“Her friends found them right when that monster was finishing,” Tom said bitterly. “He threw her out of the truck and drove off. The cops found him at his house and arrested him, but he posted bail.”

“Ashley killed herself two days later,” Helen whispered. “Her note said that she couldn’t stand knowing that he’d always be able to find her.” Tom put his arm around Helen and pulled her against his chest while she sobbed. Tears lined Tom’s weather-beaten cheeks, and for a while the only sound was Kaylyn playing in her pen and babbling softly to herself.

Then Kaylyn hurled a plastic teething ring over the edge of the playpen. It clattered to the ground and she stared at it for a few seconds through the mesh wall, then began to wail. Sam glanced at Helen and Tom, but they were in no shape to tend the baby. He got up, retrieved the ring, and held it over the edge of the pen for Kaylyn. She looked at him, at the toy, and back at him, but made no move to take it, still crying.

Sam let himself wish, for just a second, that he’d paid more attention years ago when he’d gone with Jessica to visit her family and she’d played with her cousins’ babies. Then he carefully lifted Kaylyn out of the pen and held her against his shoulder, rocking her and rubbing her back until she stopped crying and started chewing on his hair instead.

By the time he managed to detach her and get her settled back in the playpen, Tom had pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and was wiping his eyes, while Helen reached for the box of tissues that sat on the coffee table. Helen blew her nose and wiped her face, then looked up at Sam as he sat back down in the easy chair. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Sam shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“You got a story of your own,” Tom said quietly. “You were gonna just stand there and let Mike hit you, but then he said something.”

Sam had started to take a drink from his hot chocolate, but at that he looked away, drawing in a sharp breath. “It’s not—”

“It’s fine,” Helen said, her voice gentle, and reached across the coffee table to rest a hand on Sam’s knee. “We just unloaded all over you. You can tell us.”

“I—” Sam started, but his throat locked up and he gritted his teeth. “I can’t.”

“You don’t want to,” Tom corrected, “‘cause it hurts. But it’ll hurt less once you get it out.”

Sam bit his lip, scrubbed a hand over his mouth. He didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to lay out his problems on these people who had more than enough of their own. But they were watching him with kind eyes and Helen still had a hand on his knee, warm and solid and comforting, and without really meaning to, Sam started talking.

“Last summer, I… got sick,” he said, his voice unsteady. “Really sick, like, dying in the hospital sick. I knew what was going on, I was ready to die, but my brother… didn’t want to let me go.” He swallowed, fixed his eyes on the dregs of chocolate in his mug. “He found… this guy, who claimed he could heal me, had some… magic brew that would fix me. But it would… He’d need complete control over me, over my body, to do it. Dean knew that if I knew what the guy was doing, I’d refuse. So he… he lied to me. Tricked me. They made sure I was blacked out whenever the guy was around. Dean let him just…” Sam broke off, the words stuck in his throat for a second. Helen squeezed his knee, and after a moment he managed to continue, “Do whatever he wanted with me—my body. For months I thought I was just… still sick. Blacking out, losing time, waking up with blood on my—” He broke off again, remembering demons dead around him, a goddess telling him he shouldn’t be alive, pain in his throat and blood on his hands but no wounds in his skin. From the corner of his eye he could see Tom and Helen’s horrified expressions; given what had happened to their daughter he could guess what they thought he meant.

He didn’t think they were wrong.

It took him a minute to find his voice again. “The guy started using me - what he was doing to me - to hurt other people. But Dean let it go on until the guy—”

( _Kevin’s face under his hand, startled dark eyes staring at Gadreel—Sam—Gadreel through Sam’s fingers, a surge of power through Sam’s body and Kevin falling lifeless to the ground.)_

He shuddered. “He killed someone I care about. Someone I’d promised to protect. _That_ was what made Dean finally decide he’d gone too far. But even after the guy left, Dean…”

( _“I didn’t have a choice.”_

_“He saved your life.”_

_“I'm doing it all for the right reasons, and I -- I believe that.”_

_“I’ll do it alone.”_

_“I did what I had to do.”_ )

“He thinks he did the right thing,” Sam whispered. He could feel tears sliding down his cheeks, but couldn’t bring himself to care. “He thinks he did the right thing. I’m alive, and that’s all he cares about. I couldn’t…” He shook his head again. “So I left.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Helen murmured. She’d stood up and come around the table at some point; now she pulled him against her chest, one hand stroking his hair, the other holding him close. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “Let it out.” His control slipped and then shattered, and he clung to her, his body shaking with anger and grief and pain.

Helen held him until he’d wrung himself dry, then let go long enough for Tom to hand Sam another mug of chocolate, this one heavier on the alcohol. Sam tried to smile, though his cheeks were tight with drying tears and his mouth still wobbled. Helen hugged him again. “You can stay here as long as you need,” she said.

Sam hesitated. He knew he should refuse, should leave as soon as he could, in case Dean or Gadreel or Abaddon chased him here, in case Dean tried to get him back. But running had gotten him nowhere except crashed in a ditch, and he thought maybe Helen and Tom needed someone to take care of as much as Sam needed someplace to stay.

Maybe they were taking advantage of him as much as he was taking advantage of them.

So he nodded, dashing a hand across his eyes, and whispered, “Thanks.”

*             *             *

Time passed. Sam learned how to care for baby Kaylyn, changing diapers, making formula and baby food, putting her to bed and getting her up in the morning. Kaylyn latched onto him as if he’d always been a part of her life; Helen smiled sadly and said, “Ashley was clingy too, at that age.”

Sam didn’t just spend his time as a babysitter, though. He was a good enough handyman that he could take odd jobs around the neighborhood, tuning old heaters, fixing pipes frozen by the Atlantic winter, repairing broken walls and floors and ceilings. The work gave him a sense of legitimacy; he was “the Bennets’ handyman” rather than “the weird hitchhiker” to the people of Wareham. It meant people would be willing to vouch for him in court when the district attorney took Mike to trial, both for what he’d done to Ashley and for his assault and battery on both Tom and Sam. But Mike’s public defender was smart enough to recognize how unsympathetic his client was, and instead of a trial - which would have subjected Sam to the examination of the court and possibly the discovery that he was a supposedly-dead serial killer - convinced Mike to take a plea bargain that would put him behind bars until after Kaylyn had graduated college.

With Mike in jail, Helen and Tom were able to sleep a little easier, though Sam knew nothing would ever make up for their daughter’s death. Sam had guessed right that they saw him as a replacement for their daughter - they coddled him and doted on him nearly as much as they did to Kaylyn, and moreso whenever Sam was taking care of the baby. But after the plea bargain, they eased off a little, as if the finality of it had given them the closure they hadn’t found in Ashley’s funeral.

Dean didn’t try to contact Sam, and neither did Castiel. Sam didn’t know if it was because they didn’t want to - if they were glad he was gone, out of their hair, no longer a problem they had to deal with all the time - or if they simply hadn’t found him yet. Whatever the reason, he didn’t mind. He missed them, sure, but he still didn’t think he could stand the feel of Grace against his senses, didn’t think he could look Dean in the eye knowing that his brother would all too happily give Sam’s body to another angel if it meant Sam kept breathing. So he let himself be satisfied with the lack of contact, and carefully kept himself from worrying that something - Crowley, Abaddon, Metatron, the latest hunt - had killed them.

All things considered, it was a calm life, and a pleasant one. Kaylyn was growing rapidly, and Sam watched her take her first steps, taught her to use a spoon, felt his heart swell when she looked up at him and said, “Sammy!” in a delighted voice. Sam began to make real money as a handyman, his reputation growing over the months until the local Catholic parish hired him to restore their old heritage church. It had been so badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy that they’d had to stop using it, and for the last year and a half had been meeting in the elementary school’s cafeteria. But as difficult a project as it was, it was honest work, and Sam could lose himself for hours as he carefully restored damaged carvings and cleaned mud-caked stained glass windows.

It would have been a perfect life, in fact, except for the golden Trials energy that burned under Sam’s skin.

Whatever else Gadreel had done, he’d apparently lived up to his original bargain with Dean: he’d healed most of the damage done by that virulent energy, and kept it from hurting Sam more while he was there. But the energy wasn’t gone - it had just been suppressed. Without Gadreel, it began to eat away at Sam again, tearing up his insides and leaving him ever weaker.

He was able to hide it from the Bennets, at least - burying bloody tissues deep in the trash bins, finding excuses to play with Kaylyn on the floor or encouraging her to walk on her own instead of carrying her. But as March became April and spring brought green buds to the trees and bright flowers to neighborhood yards, Sam knew he only had a few months at most before his latest failure finally killed him.

*             *             *

He spotted the demons two days after Kaylyn’s first birthday. They wore bikers’ leathers and walked with the swagger of the self-assured, and Sam figured they belonged to Abaddon. He had no idea if she’d succeeded at taking over Hell yet, if Crowley was still putting up a fight. It didn’t matter, because their presence meant Abaddon had found him, and that meant he had one last chance to make things right.

Abaddon herself showed up three days later, waltzing into the partially-restored church building barely an hour after Sam had arrived to start the day’s work. She was alone - her demons must have told her about Sam’s weakened state. Just as well - Sam had planned on trapping one of her bullyboys, but he could work with her, too, and this way he didn’t have to take on several demons at once.

“Sam Winchester,” she purred. “All by your lonesome. I heard you and your brother had a falling-out.”

Sam shrugged. He stood at the side of the nave, under one of the stained glass windows lining the walls, a hammer in one hand and a crowbar in the other. He’d been prying out a section of water-damaged wall, the work going slower than it should because he had to stop every few minutes to cough blood into a handkerchief, and the floor around him was littered with broken wood, plaster, and a handful of power tools. He didn’t answer.

Abaddon’s brow furrowed. “Cat got your tongue, Winchester?” she demanded, and paced a few steps further down the center aisle. “Or do you have some _clever_ plan to take me down?”

“Not clever,” Sam said quietly, and swallowed a cough. “Just thorough.”

She stopped short as she came up against the edge of a devil’s trap. He watched her frown, watched her pace in a slow circle, feeling out the edges. Watched her as she looked around the little church with increasing worry, trying to spot where he’d drawn the trap. He gave her a minute to realize that there wasn’t anything to see, then said, “I’ve been restoring this place for over a month. I told them they really needed a construction company, but I’m all they could afford. So they didn’t mind if I was a little… _unorthodox_.”

She spun to face him, anger and - maybe, hopefully - fear in her eyes. “What did you _do_?!”

He showed teeth. “I built devil’s traps into every piece of this building I’ve touched. You’d have to tear it down board by board before you could escape.”

“You think I won’t?” Abaddon demanded, her voice low and dangerous.

“I think you won’t be able to,” he corrected her. He picked up the nail gun that lay at his feet, pointed it at her forehead ( _made his hand stop shaking from weakness_ ), and pulled the trigger.

A bullet carved with a devil’s trap had held her before. Nails carved with devil’s traps worked just as well. Abaddon screamed as he shot nails into her hands and feet, her shoulders and stomach for good measure, but the church sat on nearly five acres of land, the rolling lawns to either side more than enough to keep anyone from hearing her. Even weakened by the Trials energy, it took him only a few minutes to tie her to one of the water-stained wooden chairs that made up the front row of pews, and a few minutes more to retrieve the little kit of syringes and medical supplies from where he’d stashed it with his tools.

The walls of the church’s confessional had been broken by the hurricane, but Sam sat in the chair anyway. He folded his hands and bowed his head. _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned._

The words were hard to speak, but he forced them out anyway: _I’m leaving Kaylyn alone again. She already lost her mother and she never had a real father, but I’m not going to be there to see her grow up._

_I’m going to make Helen and Tom bury me. They buried their daughter already, and four months later they’re going to have to bury me._

_I didn’t realize what Gadreel was doing until Crowley told me. It’s my fault he killed all those people. It’s my fault he killed Kevin._

_I never apologized to Cas. What Gadreel did to me isn’t his fault, but I couldn’t tell him that, and he’ll blame himself for… for this._

_I can’t forgive Dean for what he did. I know I should, I know forgiveness is a virtue, but…_

_(Kevin staring up from beneath his fingers, Kevin screaming)_

_I can’t._

He could feel the hot sting of tears down his cheeks when he’d finished, but he felt better. Clearheaded. He’d failed before, because Dean was his weakness, because anything Dean asked of him he’d do.

Would have done, before Dean betrayed him.

But now, he knew the truth. He was going to die whether he completed the Trials or not, and it was on him to make sure Dean couldn’t sacrifice anyone else in his effort to keep Sam alive. He took a deep breath, plunged a syringe into the vein in his arm, and drew the first dose of blood.

*             *             *

Abaddon screamed, insulted, threatened. He tuned her out.

Seven hours to go.

*             *             *

By hour five, Abaddon had fallen silent. He didn’t know if she was exhausted, or just biding her time.

Sam was so weak he could barely walk. But he drew more blood and plunged the needle into Abaddon’s arm once more.

*             *             *

He set the alarm on his phone to blare at top volume every ten minutes. He didn’t dare fall asleep. Golden energy thrummed under his skin, seeming to replace the blood he was losing to the cure. Abaddon watched him with sullen grey eyes.

“You’re going to die, Sam,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he answered. He sat slumped on the pew behind her, too exhausted to move.

“Dean’ll miss you.”

“He’ll get over it.”

She laughed. “He stopped you from doing this once already because he couldn’t bear to lose you. He sold his soul for you. You really think he’ll just let you go?”

“I’m not giving him the choice this time,” Sam said. His voice was rough. “I can’t trust him with it.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, and maybe he was just tired, but he thought he heard something more than contempt in her voice. Something almost… sad. “He won’t ever let you go.”

“In two hours, it won’t matter anymore.”

“...I’m sorry,” Abaddon said quietly.

It sounded genuine.

*             *             *

Hour eight. It was past time for Sam to have gone home, but it wasn’t unusual for him to stay a little late finishing whatever he was working on, and he didn’t think Helen and Tom would worry yet.

Abaddon sat quietly in her chair, her hair hanging over her face. The sun had begun to set, casting deep shadows through the church, but Sam thought he could see tears on her cheeks.

His hand shook so badly that he almost couldn’t draw the last vial of blood. The bend of his arm was ragged and bruised with needle marks, but the pain was nothing compared to the fire of the Trials energy burning through his bones. Breathing hurt. He didn’t have the strength to stand, so he dragged himself one-handed along the pew until he could reach Abaddon.

She didn’t protest when he sank the needle into her arm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for.

Abaddon lifted her head, grey eyes meeting his. “Sam…”

He shook his head. “When this is over… when you’re cured,” he said, his voice a bare rasp. “You know about the Men of Letters. Maybe… maybe you can help Dean get them started again.”

“Sam,” she said again, but then stopped and bowed her head. “I will.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He could barely raise his hand to cover her mouth. Could barely muster the strength to speak the exorcism. Golden fire raged in his veins, behind his eyes, and he wondered distantly whether this was what Kevin had felt, in the moments before he died.

He felt Abaddon shudder under his hand, heard her sob. “God,” she murmured. “Oh, God…!”

He couldn’t open his eyes. Wasn’t even sure if he was upright anymore. But he knew he was at the finish line. That all he had to do was speak the Enochian spell, and it would all be over. Four syllables. _Please, God, give me strength!_

Drawing breath was a trial in itself. Forcing the air back out, forcing his mouth to form the words, almost impossible. But he heard them echo through the room as if spoken by someone else, echoing with power like thunder, like the sound of an immense door slamming closed:

_CA NA OM DARR._

Golden power rushed out of him in a flood. Thunder boomed somewhere overhead and wind battered the walls of the little church. A woman’s voice cried out nearby, but Sam barely registered it.

He’d done it.

The Gates of Hell were sealed.

He could finally rest.

*             *             *

Sam had expected, with Hell sealed, that his soul would have nowhere to go when he died. Or maybe he’d go to Purgatory, since it wasn’t as if he was human ( _you’re a monster, Sam, a vampire_ ). He didn’t expect to return to awareness to the sound of hospital monitors beeping, voices speaking urgently nearby, the sharp tang of disinfectant in his nostrils. He opened his eyes long enough to see Helen leaning over him, her face worried, her hand stroking his hair. Her eyes widened when she saw him looking up at her, and she said, “Sam?”

He tried to open his mouth to answer her, but even that effort was too much, and he spiraled away into darkness again.

*             *             *

_—entire body is damaged. Like something burned him up from the inside out._

_He said he’d been sick before. Is this - I mean, is he—?_

_I don’t know. I’ve… never seen anything like this._

_Doctor, please, there has to be something you can do!_

_I’m sorry. All we can do is make him comfortable._

*             *             *

“C’mon, Sammy, c’mon, c’mon…!”

Dean’s voice.

Grace like sandpaper under his skin, burning through his body, and Sam bucked, spine arching, muscles straining against the pain and terror and desperation—

“ _Sammy!”_

Dean’s voice, Dean’s hands on his shoulders, holding him down—

“Sam, please, stop fighting me! I’m trying to help you!”

Castiel’s voice. Castiel’s Grace.

They were dragging him back to life.

Again.

Sam slumped down against the hospital bed. He knew without asking that Cas had already fixed the worst of it, could already feel the burning under his skin easing, his breath coming more smoothly past the respirator. Fear and disgust and sick frustration roiled in his stomach, that once again an angel had control over his body - that once again Dean had given his body to an angel - that no one cared whether the touch of Grace made him want to scream.

Cas was still talking, probably to Dean: “The subatomic effects of the Trials are gone, at least. That must have been caused by the energy building up inside him, and once it was gone, his body returned to normal.”

“Normal,” Dean said, his voice bitter, “except the part where he’s _dying_.”

“He’ll live,” Castiel said. “He may have technically died after finishing the Trials and sealing Hell, but he got medical attention quickly enough afterward that they were able to resuscitate him.”

“Abaddon,” Dean said. “The cops let me hear the 911 call. He cured her, and I guess she felt bad enough about it that she used his phone to call an ambulance.”

“Well, she saved his life,” Castiel said. “Now it’s just a matter of repairing the damage he suffered from carrying around all that power for so long.”

“But you can do it, right, Cas?”

“I’m doing everything I can,” Castiel said softly. His hand, warm on Sam’s forehead, moved, smoothing Sam’s hair back. “Sam,” he said. “I know you’re awake.”

If a ventilator hadn’t been breathing for him, Sam would have sighed. As it was, he opened his eyes and did his best to glare at Castiel. The hospital room was dark and quiet; the clock on the wall said it was past midnight. It was just Sam, Dean, and Castiel in the room, though a knitted blanket that Sam recognized from the Bennets’ living room had been draped across his legs. The sight of it made his throat tighten, and he had to fight the urge to swallow against the breathing tube down his throat.

“Sam?” Dean said, and shoved into Sam’s line of sight. “Sammy!”

Sam met his brother’s eyes. Dean looked… ragged. Afraid. But also relieved, and he reached out to rest a hand against Sam’s jaw.

Sam turned his head away.

“Dammit, Sam,” Dean said. Sam had expected him to grab onto him, force Sam to look at him, but to his surprise, he didn’t. Dean’s voice, when he spoke again, sounded broken. “You’re still pissed at me.”

Sam didn’t move.

“Sammy,” Dean said, and then stopped and said to Cas, “Can we take that damn ventilator off? He can’t say anything like this.”

“I don’t think that would be wise,” Castiel answered. “I did what I could, but he’s still fragile.”

“Dammit,” Dean muttered again.

_Cas_ , Sam thought. Maybe this would be close enough to praying. _You can hear me, can’t you?_

There was a startled pause, then Castiel said, “Yes, I can.”

From the corner of his eye Sam saw Dean swing around to stare at Cas in confusion, but Sam ignored him. _Sorry I ran off,_ he thought to Castiel.

“It’s all right,” Castiel said. “I think… I think I understand. And… I’m sorry, too. I didn’t realize… how you felt. I won’t do it again.”

Sam stared at him for a second, shocked. He hadn’t expected Castiel to understand. Had thought, despite the Bennets’ reassurances that he had every right to be upset about what Dean and Gadreel had done, that Sam was the freak, the one who was wrong ( _because he always was, because Dean got to decide who and what was right, and the answer was never Sam_ ). Castiel waited him out with the patience of someone who’d lived since the beginning of creation, and finally Sam nodded. He could feel tears at the corners of his eyes, of exhaustion and frustration and pain, but he kept his gaze firmly on the far wall and the tears didn’t fall.

Dean looked between Castiel and Sam in surprise. “Cas, you can hear him?”

“He’s… praying to me,” Castiel confirmed.

“Sam,” Dean said sharply, and leaned over to look at him. “Damn it, Sam, what the hell were you thinking? I _told_ you finishing the Trials would kill you!”

_They were killing me anyway,_ Sam thought, and Castiel repeated it out loud. _They didn’t care if I ‘let it go’. If they were going to kill me whether or not I finished, then might as well finish._

“So, what, all of that was for nothing?” Dean demanded. “Crowley, Gadreel, Kevin—” His voice cracked and he broke off, turning away.

Sam huffed a bitter laugh past the ventilator. _This is what happens, Dean. We keep throwing away everything - everyone - else for each other. It’s time to stop._

“Sammy—”

_No_ , Sam thought, sharp enough that Castiel twitched. _No, Dean._

“Why not?” Dean demanded. “You finished the Trials, you proved your point, Sam, now it’s time to come home.”

_Clearly I didn’t_ , Sam said. _Not if you think I’m ready to come back with you._

Dean scrubbed a hand over his mouth and turned away, his shoulders tight with tension. When he turned back, his face was dark, angry. “Sam, you damn near killed yourself again. I can’t—I’m not going to—”

_It’s not your choice_ , Sam interrupted. Castiel, translating, managed to convey some of his frustration in his voice.

“Why the hell not?” Dean all but snarled. “You keep choosing to _die_ , Sam! I’m not gonna let you do that - I _can’t_.”

_It’s not your choice_ , Sam said again, tiredly.

“Fine,” Dean snapped. “How long are you gonna keep up this little show, Sam? When are you gonna come home?”

Sam turned his head to meet his brother’s eyes. _When you understand why I won’t_ , he said. Castiel repeated the words softly, giving them the weight Sam intended.

Dean stared back for a long minute, then huffed out a breath and turned away. “Fine,” he said again, and the sharpness of his voice didn’t quite hide the pain in it. “Bye, Sam. Come find me when you’re done playing house.” Without waiting for an answer, he stormed out of the room.

Sam looked up at Castiel. _Take care of him, Cas?_

“Always,” Castiel murmured. He smoothed the hair off Sam’s forehead again, then followed Dean out of the room, leaving Sam alone.

With no one to see him, he closed his eyes and let the tears fall.

*             *             *

Sam woke up the next morning to baby Kaylyn crawling on his legs and calling, “Sammy! Sammy!” He blinked his eyes open and tried to smile at her, though he didn’t think she could see it through the ventilator.

She didn’t seem to care, though. She settled herself on his stomach and held out her current favorite toy, a little plush bunny with a jangling bell around its neck that Sam had gotten her for Easter. “Bun,” she announced, and shook the bunny so the bell jingled. “Bun!”

Lifting an arm was almost more than Sam could manage, but he took the bunny from her and hopped it through the air, making Kaylyn squeal with delight. Past her, he could see Helen and Tom standing beside his hospital bed, relief on their faces.

“Sam,” Helen said, and reached past Kaylyn to squeeze Sam’s wrist. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

He shrugged a shoulder. Helen smiled wryly. “Dumb question, I guess. The doctor said you were… you almost died. He said it’s a miracle you’re alive right now.” Her smile turned watery, tears filling her eyes.

A miracle named Castiel, but Sam couldn’t exactly tell her that, even if he hadn’t had a ventilator tube down his throat. He just turned his hand over under hers and squeezed her fingers.

“We’re going to get you better,” Helen continued, and behind her, Tom nodded firmly. “We’ll get you better, and bring you home. You understand me?”

Sam nodded. He was already exhausted, his eyes drifting closed again despite Kaylyn pushing the bunny against his chest, but he was alive. He was alive, and he had a home to go to.

Maybe he’d be all right after all.


End file.
